I haven't had a perfect career. I've put some albums out that, looking back, I'm not super proud of, but there's also a lot of stuff that I am very proud of.
I'm never happy with anything I've done! If you sat me down and played everything I've ever recorded, I'd just sit there going, 'No... that could be better.'
It makes you feel good when a movie works. Usually when I see an old movie I've made, I say to myself, 'Oh God, why did I do this?' and 'Why didn't I change that?' and things like that.
I wish I could do a lot of things different. I'm not going to tell you what they are, but if I had a list of all my films right now, I'd go, 'Okay, I'll cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out and cross that one out.' Really. But I've made over 40 films. How can I not have some losers in there?
I wish I could remember how to write a play. I can't remember how they happened.
Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.
The one thing I learned is not to say anything about my own paintings. Keep my mouth shut. You'll never stop hearing what you said. It will come back to you again and again, people will always tell you about it. Even if you were the source of what's wrong with it.
I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.
Any creative process comes with a level of self-analysis and self-criticism. There's a lot of waking up in the middle of the night going, 'Oh, I wish I had done that differently.'
I still stand behind the stuff I did early on, but I was on a record label, and I didn't have a lot of creative control. Another side of that is just being young and having bad taste. There was plenty of that, too.
No, I will never do another Rainbow album. I'll never ever do that again. I want no part in doing it; I want no part in doing anything with Ritchie at all. I respect him. He's a genius. He was a great part of my life, but I don't need to go through that hell.
It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.
I often wonder whether I would have done as well in painting.
I regret very much that I have painted a picture that requires any description.
Of all the films that I have directed, I think 'Lootera' is the one that could have been better.
I'm not proud of the lyrics to 'Shake It Up.'
My aim in life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life... looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, 'Oh, the pictures I might have made!'
It is hard to watch myself. I'm hypercritical, and it's difficult to watch a performance when I may end up being at odds with it - wishing I'd done something differently or that they had edited it a certain way.
I've always loved painting and drawing. I wish I'd developed it more and exhibited.
I hated my early videos. I really did. I hated 'The Rhythm.' Hated it. It's not my vibe to have lot of white people jumping on trampolines.
I created a human being from paper and I put it on the screen, a unique individual. I wish every performance, every IMDB credit, I would do it over, because I would do it better, because I would do it less. If that makes any sense.
I think just in general there's a bunch of films that mattered to me that didn't reach their potential, and on some level you have to assume responsibility for that. And I think over the years that gets difficult.
Most artists, most painters, even composers would want to come back and redo their work. They've got a new perspective on it, they've got more resources, they have better technology, and they can fix or finish the things that were never done.
To me, one of the big fears of doing a big huge graphic novel is locking yourself into one style and getting halfway through it and going, 'Oh I made the wrong choice,' which is a recurring nightmare I have.
I usually destroy unreleased material. It has a way of coming back to haunt you.
